Emily Van Male, Neighbor

My name is Emily Van Male, and I love food.

I love to talk about food almost as much as I love to eat it. So when Angela Hart gave me the opportunity to write a column based on restaurants in the Rohnert Park area for Patch.com, I was so excited that I almost forgot about the deli sandwich from a local market I had been fantasizing about all morning. Almost.

Born and raised in Napa, California. My first word was “hot”, after repeatedly trying to touch the stovetop or oven. I remember my parents being active in the kitchen during my childhood. Luckily, they were also pretty tolerant of my unique eating habits, such as refusing to eat oatmeal purely because of the texture. Early on I started experimenting with cooking. Mostly I just made sandwiches, as I was (and still am) ridiculously accident prone and my parents were probably tired of multiple trips to the emergency room due to my curiosities. Three of my favorite ingredients found to amp up a peanut butter sandwich: marshmallow fluff (“fluffer-nutter”), maple syrup, or dill pickles. At barbeques, my family and friends teased me mercilessly for how long I took to decide what I wanted to put on my cheeseburgers, and sometimes even longer to construct it properly. I didn’t care if everyone was already halfway done eating by the time I got started; mine would be perfect. I was always scolded for using an excessive amount of butter… on everything… and I was literally a chocolate junkie as a preteen.

As I grew older, the time came to continue my education, find employment and spread my little foodie wings. After dabbling in a variety classes at several community colleges over the years, I got the most out of the Santa Rosa Junior College’s Culinary Program. I’ve worked numerous jobs, including serving for a catering company and a few restaurants, working as a deli clerk at a grocery store and as a barista for a couple coffee shops. After school and work, I have dedicated a lot of my time to dining out. I will starve myself all week, and use spare change to pay for gas, if it means that I can have dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant (and yes, it is located in Rohnert Park). Currently I’m working at a coffee shop that has some of the best espresso in Sonoma County. It is in this place that I will chat up my regulars and tourists about the best local eats, the hidden gems of Rohnert Park and surrounding areas. I am looking forward to now writing about these places in hopes that people will find that there is more for their palates to discover in Rohnert Park than the obvious chain restaurants that seem to dominate the area and create the impression that they are the only ones here. The good little places are here too, we just need to find where they are hiding…